There are more things in heaven and earth

December 11, 2007

ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — A public school teacher
has died due to complications from a drug-resistant form of staph
infection, school officials said....

Teacher Merry King had been absent from the
school since Nov. 30 and had been hospitalized since early last week.
Her family said she died Sunday evening due to complications from
methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. (source)

An estimated 18,000 people a year die of MRSA, and I am not suggesting every one of them can be saved. But since MRSA does not respond to routine medical treatment, your local hospital staff are basically at a loss. I'm not sure they do anything but "supportive" therapy, which does not address the problem. I do think thousands of lives would be saved if hospital staff opened their minds to alternative treatments (after all-- they got nothin'!).

Here are some suggestions from alternative health ("alternative," sadly, includes "nutrition"):

Of course, for lo these many years no doctor in America has felt free to experiment with treatment, not even when mainstream medicine has NO treatment to offer. There are protocols for these things, and a doctor dare not deviate from such protocols-- no matter if the patient's life might be saved.

Or in other words: once you go to a hospital, all of the above possible treatments are denied. If you should be diagnosed with MRSA you need to find a holistic MD, naturopath, or some such person. Luckily MRSA is usually a skin infection, and thus, you're free to throw everything and the kitchen sink at it, topically; and the oral supplements can be found at any health store or Whole Foods. But if you have to go to the hospital, you've already lost. The same with children's illnesses-- once they're at the hospital, they are no longer in your custody, they belong to the hospital and you have no say at all in their treatment. So it's best to treat an infection or illness by doing something-- and you can hopefully avoid the E.R. altogether, and thus preserve your freedom to attempt alternative therapies.

(You'll notice that nothing in my suggestion list is a prescription drug-- and that's precisely why no doctor will ever treat you with such substances.)

And couples who were sterilised would be eligible for carbon credits under the controversial proposal.

Perth specialist Professor Barry Walters was heavily critical of the
$4000 baby bonus, saying that paying new parents extra for every baby
fuelled more children, more emissions and "greenhouse-unfriendly
behaviour".

Having a kid for the sake of obtaining a $4000 tax credit smacks of all those imaginary welfare queens who had babies just for the food stamps. It's utter bullshit.

Secondly, any given child will have a "carbon footprint" which is totally unknown at the time of their birth. They may grow up to race cars, or they may devote themselves to organic farming. This jerk doesn't care; to him, a human being is inherently destructive, and no matter what their choices in life, they must be seen as harmful.

But how does this address the two brand new coal-fueled electrical plants which China brings on-line every week? Or the fact that Americans hate railroads and mass transit like the French hate Velveeta and boxed wine? Can't this guy find a better place to start than penalizing newborns?

Apparently not. Even better than limiting the number of kids, says Prof. Walters, is getting sterilized. But of course, we've been down this path before-- first it's more responsibility and family planning, then it's sterilization, and next thing it's euthanasia for the Greater Good. If the best gift one can give to our dear Earth is to off oneself, I suggest Prof. Walters set the example.